beaker browser was cloned from electron-boilerplate.

Structure

There are two package.json files:

1. For development

Sits on path: beaker-browser/scripts/package.json. Here you declare dependencies for the development environment and build scripts. This folder is not distributed with real application!

2. For the application

Sits on path: beaker-browser/app/package.json. This is real manifest of the application. Declare the app dependencies here.

OMG, but seriously why there are two package.json?

1. Native npm modules (those written in C, not JavaScript) need to be compiled, and here we have two different compilation targets for them. Those used in application need to be compiled against electron runtime, and all devDependencies need to be compiled against your locally installed node.js. Thanks to having two files this is trivial.
2. When you package the app for distribution there is no need to add up to size of the app with your devDependencies. Here those are always not included (because reside outside the app directory).

Project's folders

• app - application code.
• app/background-process - main electron process.
• app/builtin-pages - start page, config page, etc.
• app/lib - shared lib code for code that's not in the background process (builtin-pages, shell-window, webview-preload).
• app/shell-window - the ui controls code (tabs, addressbar, etc).
• app/stylesheets - styles shared across the app.
• app/webview-preload - scripts injected into web pages.
• dist - in this folder lands built, runnable application.
• build - resources needed for building the app.

Development

Installation

cd scripts
npm install

It will also download Electron runtime, and install dependencies for second package.json file inside app folder.

Starting the app

cd scripts
npm start

Adding npm modules to your app

Remember to add your dependency to app/package.json file, so do:

cd app
npm install name_of_npm_module --save

Making a release

To make ready for distribution installer use command:

cd scripts
npm run release

It will start the packaging process for operating system you are running this command on. Ready for distribution file will be outputted to dist directory.

You can create Windows installer only when running on Windows, the same is true for Linux and OSX. So to generate all three installers you need all three operating systems.